Roy Smiles has read Accidental Death Of An Anarchist, if not
propped it open on his desk while writing his latest play. A police office
with tyrannical boss and thick underling under external investigation,
a radical terrorist who tape-records crucial confessions by the filth,
some defenestration... sound familiar? Here, the plot hinges around a series
of milkman-murders by the not dead at all Italian banker Roberto Calvi
in an attempt to maintain his South London incognito. I suspect, though,
that Smiles has never seen Fo's farce staged; he sets blocks of farce next
to slabs of social comment and lumps of anti-Masonic invective, rather
than blending the ingredients so that we laugh and fume at the same time.

Director Gregor Truter can only lubricate the proceedings so far (not
least in his own amusing performance as a God-bothered senior cop), but
his cast often let him down: we see an Italian Catholic who can't speak
her language or cross herself properly, a Calvi who gets the name of his
own bank wrong and a police inspector whose bastardy is impeded by frequent
line-fluffs. Smiles has this year shown himself to be a writer of talent
with Top Of The Town, Buddy Can You Spare A Song? and Schmucks;
but Calvi, while observing all the shibboleths, is unlikely to lodge
in the memory.